Are Teachers Overpaid?

This is just a little thought-experiment. There has been some talk of teachers being little more than overpaid baby-sitters – see for example this story in the New York Times:

The jabs Erin Parker has heard about her job have stunned her. Oh you pathetic teachers, read the online comments and placards of counterdemonstrators. You are glorified baby sitters who leave work at 3 p.m. You deserve minimum wage.

“You feel punched in the stomach,” said Ms. Parker, a high school science teacher in Madison, Wis., where public employees’ two-week occupation of the State Capitol has stalled but not deterred the governor’s plan to try to strip them of bargaining rights.

But are teachers overpaid babysitters?

Let’s imagine for a moment that teachers were paid a baby-sitter’s salary. Let’s assume that they charge $3.00 an hour per kid. They “babysit” 25 children from 8AM to 3PM Monday through Friday. That’s eight hours a day, five days a week, for approximately nine months (or 36 weeks) a year. The math, very briefly:

8 hours x $3.00/hr = $24 a day per student.

$24/student x 25 students = $600 a day per class

36 weeks x 5 days per week = 180 days

$600 x 180 days = $108,000.00/year salary.

The average teacher in Wisconsin - where teachers are fighting the Republican governor, Scott Walker, for their right to collectively bargain - makes about $51,000 a year. Their benefits package knocks that up quite a bit – some say by $39,000 to a total of $90,000 combined benefits and wages.

But that’s still $18,000 a year less than they would be making if they wereactually baby-sitting.